


Warm and Fuzzy Feelings

by mmmdraco



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Angst, Frottage, M/M, Oral Sex, not-that-childlike!Teddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 10:07:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Yosuke lets Teddie stay at his place, it's like having a sibling that he has to teach all of these things like how to use chopsticks, until Teddie wants to learn more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm and Fuzzy Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Some people see Teddie as being very mentally young, like Nanako's age. I personally don't, though I do see him being extremely naive and maybe a little younger than Yosuke. So, I guess he's aged up from how most of fandom portrays him, but I fully understand people not being comfortable with Teddie in any shipping circumstances. You are warned.

Yosuke looked back over his shoulder. "Okay, Teddie. If you see me doing anything that you don't understand, just ask, okay?" He slid the key into the lock and turned it and opened the door to his house. "Here we go. This is where you'll be staying for a little while at least. My mom's pretty okay with anything I do, so I'm sure she'll be cool with you staying for longer than that."

Teddie blinked at him and cocked his head to one side. "None of the buildings in my world look like this."

"Huh?" Yosuke glanced around the entryway. "Well, everything over there is pretty much shops, I guess. But Yu and I entered into some kind of bedroom when we first went in there, so... Maybe you just don't pay enough attention."

"I pay plenty of attention, thank you beary much! But with that world getting bigger lately, I don't think I've seen everything." Teddie finally walked into the entryway and paused to look around. "I like it," he said decisively.

Yosuke laughed as he closed the door finally. "Take off your shoes and put on a pair of the slippers there." He did the same himself. "Okay, let's go find where Mom hid the spare futon."

Teddie followed him complacently as Yosuke found the futon hidden away in a storage closet and dragged it to his room and dropped it down next to his own. At the noise of it, he looked up at Teddie. "Er, you do sleep, right?"

"Of course! I don't hibernate, though." Teddie stood with his arms akimbo and a smile bright on his face.

"Yeah, okay. Well, the futons are in here now and we'll lay them out before we go to bed. Are you hungry?" Yousuke led the way to the kitchen.

Teddie nodded emphatically. "I'm starving! Do you know what it takes to grow a body?"

Yosuke sighed as he looked through the cupboards and started preparing a cup of instant ramen. The abundance of food and the quality of the kitchen that held it spoke volumes of how good his father's job was, and the amount of it that was made for quick eating spoke volumes of how little anyone was home. Yosuke liked people well enough, even if the feeling wasn't always mutual, but he would have been okay with staying home a little more often if someone else would have been there. It was the reason he'd made the offer to Teddie in the first place. He just hoped the bear didn't snore.

Only, Teddie wasn't a bear anymore. And, really, had he been a bear in the first place? He'd been a hollow, fuzzy shell for sure, and Yosuke guessed he'd looked enough like a bear for it to count, but plenty of people looked like one thing and were really something else. Yosuke shook off the line of thought and checked the ramen. It was done enough that he brought it out to Teddie with a pair of chopsticks and started to look away as Teddie asked, "Yosuke, how do I eat this?"

Yosuke's eyes widened a little. "Oh, that's right. I guess you've never had instant ramen before. You just pick up the noodles with your chopsticks and kind of slurp them up, and you just drink the broth."

Teddie picked up the chopsticks, one in each hand, and looked at them carefully. "And how do these work?"

So Yosuke spent the next five minutes teaching Teddie about how to use chopsticks, and kind of just how to use his brand new opposable thumbs for more than manuevering around in a bear suit, and it was kind of like having a younger sibling, really. 

Yosuke had always envied people with brothers and sisters. It seemed like they'd always have a lively household and Yosuke wanted that. Hell, the best part of school was just being surrounded by people. He wanted noise to fill his ears. It's why he always had his headphones around his neck. Too much silence? Drown it out with music. But even music was starting to get predictable.

"Do you have anything else to eat?" Yosuke was startled from his thoughts by the high pitch of Teddie's voice.

"You're already finished? Man." Yosuke looked to the kitchen and frowned before looking at the table again. "Here. Eat this." He handed Teddie an apple and Teddie obediently bit into it and chewed noisily. "I'll be back in a minute, Teddie. I've got to pee."

Teddie stood up from his chair. "I have to pee, too!"

"Well, I'm going first!" Yosuke felt his eyebrows draw together. "C'mon. The toilet's over here." He opened the door and let himself in and felt his eyes widen again as Teddie tried to join him. "Hey! What're you doing?"

"I've never used a bathroom in this body before. I just went outside," Teddie said. "You said you would help me learn things."

So Yosuke spent the next five minutes teaching Teddie how to aim in the toilet and how to clean up the seat if you missed (as Yosuke did when demonstrating) and he told him what to do if there was, uh, _something else_ you had to do, and Yosuke felt kind of embarassed at the end of it as he taught Teddie about washing his hands, but it really just seemed like getting dressed in front of a pet or something, so it wasn't that weird. He'd maybe had a little performance anxiety in the beginning, but he'd gotten over it.

And then there was teaching Teddie about pajamas (and having to hold back his laughter about how ridiculous Teddie looked wearing pajamas that were already a little large on Yosuke), and about washing his face and brushing his teeth and spreading out the futon (Yosuke was careful to keep his magazines hidden away). The futons only had maybe 10cm of space between them, really, even after Yosuke moved the table in his room, but that was okay. It was enough that they weren't touching, and Teddie didn't know any better anyway. 

Yosuke set the alarm on his phone to go off early the next morning. "'Night, Ted," he muttered as he pulled the covers up to his shoulders.

Teddie yawned loudly and Yosuke remembered his worries about the snoring. "Good night, Yosuke!" 

Concentrating on the even rhythm of Teddie's breathing (very much so not a snore, but still noticeable) lulled Yosuke to sleep quite easily.

When the alarm went off the next morning, what woke Yosuke more than the blaring noise was Teddie kneeling on Yosuke's hair in an attempt to find the source of the noise. "Ted! Get off of me!" He shoved past Teddie's flailing arm to grab his phone and shut off the sound. "It was my alarm."

"So there's an intruder?" Teddie picked up his pillow with both hands and stood with it readied against one shoulder. "Where? I'll get him!"

Yosuke sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the back of one hand while he yawned. "No. This alarm is to let you know when you have to get up in the morning."

"Oh! What are we going to do today, then?"

"We? I've got to go to school!"

"So, I can't go to school with you?" Teddie sat down on his futon with a sigh. "I guess I'll have to go back to _my_ world, then."

"You're pouting," Yosuke said with a grin. "No one said you had to go back. But, do you even have any identification?"

"Hmm..." Teddie looked down at himself. "I guess not."

"So, stay here instead. There's a ton of movies and video games and books. Let me go around real quick and show you how to work everything and I'll leave my number by the phone so that if you have any problems, you can call me."

"You're a beary good friend," Teddie said with a wry smile.

"You make a lot of stupid puns," Yosuke said with a smile of his own. "But you're a pretty good friend, too."

Teddie glanced around the bedroom. "Do I need to stay in this room?"

Yosuke shook his head. "Nah. Just stay out of my parent's bedroom and you should be good."

"Great!"

So Yosuke got dressed quickly and took some time to show Teddie around the house and to teach him about the various devices hooked up to the TV and about using the microwave. As a last thought he said, "You probably won't see either of my parents since Dad's at a business conference at Junes headquarters and Mom went to visit her sister, so don't worry about that and, uh, don't answer the door or go outside, okay?"

Teddie was somehow already nestled in front of an early morning variety show with a box of Pretz serving as his breakfast. "You got it!"

With more than just a hint of reservations, Yosuke hurried off to school.

* * *

One night stretched into quite a lot more once Yosuke's parents came home and he introduced Teddie to them. The bear proved to be a relentless flatterer, especially with Yosuke's mother, and Yosuke wasn't sure how he felt about someone essentially hitting on his mom. It wasn't like it was only his mom, though. It seemed that if you were female and near Teddie, you were going to get a little love thrown your way. Yosuke totally didn't know how to feel about it.

When he tried to tell Teddie to cool it with the charm, the bear acted a little offended. "Yosuke! I'm just giving the ladies what they want."

"Where did you even learn how to do that?" Yosuke shook his head. "If you were the only thing in your world, then how? Were you complimenting Shadows?"

Teddie shook his head and pointed up to a bookshelf in the living room. "I couldn't remember how to switch between the video games and the cable TV, so I started to read."

Yosuke felt his face fall. "Those are my mom's romance novels."

"Uh huh! I learned a _lot_ from them!" Teddie polished his fingernails on the front of his shirt. "Before you know it, I'll be scoring."

"You suddenly know what scoring is?"

Teddie grimaced. "Well, I think so. Scoring is when you fall madly in love with someone and sweep them off their feet, right?"

With a laugh, Yosuke said, "Not quite. Maybe you'll figure it out some day." He cleared his throat. "I need to get to school, Ted. I'll see you this afternoon." Yosuke was quick to leave the house.

The walk to school was pretty peaceful which was a good thing since Yosuke's head was filled with all kinds of things which weren't biology and English and whatever else he was supposed to have studied over the weekend. Instead, it was filled with the idea of sweeping someone off their feet and imagining their reaction... But, Yosuke couldn't seem to imagine what kind of expression Yu might wear for such a thing.

Because that was it, really. If Yosuke were capable of honestly saying who he wanted to "score" with (and he liked both Teddie's definition and the real one), then it would be Yu. Through everything that they'd gone through together and how much of Yosuke that Yu had seen and been accepting of, Yosuke felt himself held on the brink by the question of whether Yu could be accepting of the fact that Yosuke had feelings for him that he couldn't really explain, and maybe even accepting of a confession?

Close to school, the crowd of pedestrians grew thicker and Yosuke shook himself out of his thoughts, but indulged for one more second as he spotted Yu ahead of him and raced forward to join him. What would it be like to do this in a perfect world where no one was watching? Would Yu grab his hand and spin him? Would they link arms and talk about their morning? But the actuality of standing next to a near silent Yu was enough to shake Yosuke from his reverie. Yu would walk to school the last handful of meters and Yosuke would talk about the case while trying to keep up. Consistency. Enough things were changing around them that Yosuke couldn't bear to chance _change_ where it could go so horrible wrong.

So Yosuke sucked it up and tried not to let anything show. He willed away thoughts about the glimpse of Yu's cock that he got in the locker room while changing for gym, and of the soft murmur of Yu's voice when he whispered an answer to Yosuke when Yosuke had no clue at all what Kashiwagi-sensei was talking about, and even the way Yu's pencil was still warm from the other guy's fingers when Yosuke had to ask to borrow it when he broke his own. 

When the end of the day came, Yosuke found himself hanging out in the back of the classroom and just watching Yu as he gathered his things and headed out the door with little more than a nod to the rest of the Investigation Team. Yosuke wanted to chase after him and make plans to hit up Aiya or go walking somewhere or _something_ , but he didn't want to push things. Even as a friend, Yosuke knew that a lot of people thought he came on too strong. He could get by with that when it came to Chie because Chie was even worse than Yosuke was to the point that she annoyed Yosuke sometimes, but he had to be careful with everyone else. 

So Yosuke went home alone and let himself into the quiet house and smiled softly. It was quiet, but it wasn't empty. The air smelled sweet and Yosuke followed the scent to find his mother serving up a large slice of strawberry shortcake to Teddie. "Mom!"

She giggled. "What? I'm not allowed to give your friend food? And really, Teddie-kun, shouldn't you be in school?"

Yosuke groaned. "He graduated early, but he decided to be a ronin for a little while to catch up on his socializing. I already told you that!" He pointed to the shortcake. "May I have a slice too, please?"

"But I bought this especially for Teddie! He's so cute when he eats the strawberries, don't you think?"

Yosuke turned to glare at Teddie whose mouth was red and wrapped around the strawberry impaled upon his fork. For a moment, he felt a measure of attraction for the shorter boy, but shook it off. "Well, I guess it's up to Ted whether I can have a piece of _his_ cake."

Teddie nodded and pulled the fork from his mouth. "Of course! I would do anything for Yosuke, even letting him have a slice of this _beary_ berry cake."

Yosuke sighed, but brought over a plate from the cupboard anyway. "Are you sure you can _bear_ it?"

Teddie laughed. "Good one, Yosuke!" He sliced off a piece of cake and slid it onto the plate along with the strawberry from the middle. "There you go."

Yosuke sunk into the chair next to Teddie and took the first bite, smiling at the sweet creaminess. "Thanks, Ted."

When they'd finished their cake, Yosuke stretched his arms over his head. "I'm going to head to the room and lay down," he said to no one in particular.

Once he was in the room, he turned the lock quickly and spread out his futon and picked out a very special magazine and turned to a very special page. There was a girl in it who reminded him so much of Yu. Her hair was almost a charcoal color and cut short and her body and face were a little boyish, and the picture was shot from the back with her looking back over her shoulder. If Yosuke closed his eyes and squinted just a little, then he could pretend. With the magazine held open in front of him, he moved one hand to adjust himself inside his pants. 

At the first touch of his hand against his cock, Yosuke moaned and bit his lip to try to hold back the sound. With a practiced ease, he opened his pants one-handed while looking at the magazine with glazed eyes and began to stroke himself in earnest as the image of Yu in his mind overlaid the picture and turned the boyish girl smirking cheekily at him into Yu whose smile was a little more of a wry grin and whose shoulders were broader and whose hair didn't have that hint of curl to it at the ends.

His breath heavy in the air, Yosuke continued to slide his hand over his cock, slick as it was now with precome, and tried to focus as much as he could on not being too loud, Admittedly, he wasn't focusing on that a lot.

"Yosuke, is _that_ scoring?"

With a gasp, Yosuke pulled his slightly sticky hand away from his crotch and covered himself with the magazine. "Ted! How did you get in here? I locked the door!"

Pointing to the door that was now sitting wide open, Teddie said, "The handle didn't turn at first, but then it did."

Yosuke cleared his throat and gestured toward the door. "Do you think you could close the door?"

Teddie did just that and then turned back to Yosuke. "So, was that scoring?"

Trying to discreetly wipe his hand on the side of his pants, Yosuke said, "I kind of meant for you to leave and shut the door behind you."

"But you said to ask you about the things I don't understand, and I don't understand what you were doing."

"Ted, this is something that... Ugh. It's called masturbation, okay? It's, like, scoring with yourself. And if you say anything about it to anyone, then I will kill you."

Teddie sat down on the futon uncomfortably close to Yosuke. "You looked really happy when you were doing it."

The tension in Yosuke's face started to ease a little. "Well, it feels good. You don't do it when you're a little kid, though. It's something you do when you're older."

Teddie looked down at his body. "You know, when I was growing this body, I tried to make it kind of like yours."

"What?!" Yosuke shook his head. "Why would you try to do something like that?"

"Before, I was hollow. I didn't have a single thing inside me. You were the first one to try to see what was inside me and you took care of me in my world even when I was rude to you at first. So when I focused on making a body, I couldn't really think of anyone else. I wanted there to be something inside because you thought there should be."

"That's really sweet, Ted, but I'm still kind of a mess over here." Yosuke wiped his hand against his pant leg again.

"I can help you clean up!"

"No, Teddie!"

"Can you at least teach me about scoring? If it has to do with that, then your mom's books talk about it a little, but they don't really go into detail."

Yosuke let his head fall forward. "This is really embarassing." He looked up and saw the way that Teddie was looking at him and swallowed as his mind started racing. Obviously, Teddie had a little bit of knowledge on the topic now and he was willing and able and he _wanted_ it... "Okay. What I'll show you isn't really scoring because it's not going all the way, but it's fun. You only do this with people you really care about though, okay?"

Teddie's face lit up with a smile. "So you really care about me?"

"Of course I do, you stupid bear!" Yosuke shook his head and reached down to adjust himself again beneath the magazine so that he could remove the magazine and not show anything yet. He tossed the magazine to the side and turned slightly toward Teddie. "Okay, I guess first what you do is you kiss."

"Oh, like smooching?" Teddie leaned forward and placed a quick kiss on Yosuke's lips and sat back. "Like that?"

Yosuke scratched the back of his head and frowned. "Uh, a little more intense than that. And longer." Teddie leaned forward again and Yosuke responded by cupping the back of Teddie's skull and leaning in to Teddie so that their lips touched. Teddie's lips were warm against his own and Yosuke touched them with his tongue. When Teddie's mouth opened, Yosuke let his tongue trail along Teddie's bottom lip. Teddie whimpered and let his tongue tangle with Yosuke's. Yosuke pulled away suddenly. "More like that. Yeah."

Teddie clutched his hands together near his waist. "Yosuke, I feel kind of warm."

Yosuke took a deep breath and reached up to unbutton Teddie's shirt. Button by button, more skin was revealed until the shirt hung loose on Teddie's shoulders. His pale skin shone in the light of the room and Yosuke nearly laughed at how much more his physique resembled the girl in the magazine than it did Yu. He brushed against one pink nipple with his thumb and chuckled at Teddie's gasp. "See? If you're warm and everyone around you is okay with it, then you can take off your clothes. It's like getting ready for bed and just not putting your pajamas on."

Hesitantly, Teddie let the shirt fall to catch at his elbows and struggled for a moment until he worked his way free. "Are you warm, too?"

Yosuke swallowed. This was his last chance to back out gracefully. But he was still hard and his head was still full of thoughts of Yu, so his fingers found his top button and slid it through the buttonhole and then moved to the next and then so on until his shirt joined Teddie's. "This isn't really scoring, Teddie, but it is kind of a big deal. Are you sure you want to do this?"

There was a smile on Teddie's face as he unbuttoned his pants and lowered the zipper. "I do! I'm really happy that you're teaching me. I understand a lot of the things that go on in those books, but not all of them. Some of the parts make me feel warm like this, too. Is that okay?"

Biting his bottom lip in frustration at how much his brain was telling him that he was a horrible person for even going this far, Yosuke said, "I guess you never felt like this when you were a bear?"

Teddie shrugged. "I was the only one there for the longest time. Isn't this a way you feel for other people? I... I don't even know if I'm a person now, really, but I know I wasn't one then."

Yosuke leaned forward and gave Teddie a kiss that was decidedly more chaste than the last. "You're a person to me now, you know, even if I do still call you a bear sometimes." He coughed. "So, uh, we need to finish getting undressed." Yosuke stood up awkwardly and shoved his still unzipped pants down. Teddie did the same, but lowered his underwear as well so that he stood naked in front of Yosuke and looked completely unashamed. With a hitch in his breath, Yosuke took off his underwear as well and stepped forward until he was almost chest-to-chest with Teddie. "Okay."

Teddie stood on the toes and wrapped his arms around Yosuke's neck and kissed him again; his tongue darting into Yosuke's mouth and his hands carding through Yosuke's hair. With his eyes closed, it was easy for Yosuke to lose himself in the moment and in fantasy and think of Yu, if he'd just eaten shortcake, and to start to touch everything. One hand splayed across the small of Teddie's back was easily touching Yu in his mind, even if Teddie was too short and slim. The fingers that trailed down Yosuke's side made him tremble and breathe out, "Yu", but they were brushed away in the moment of Teddie's slim fingers continuing their path across his hip and along the underside of Yosuke's hard cock. 

"What does it mean when this happens?" Teddie asked and pressed his own cock against Yosuke's.

Yosuke tried to focus and remember health class and what he'd read on the Internet and what his dad had told him turning his "birds and the bees" speech, but it all flew together in a jumble as Teddie touched him, so Yosuke blurted out what he could, "It means you find something sexy and your blood goes there and your body is ready for sex and, uh, well..." Yosuke trailed off. "It's how guys show their arousal. Girls don't really do anything."

Teddie nodded and continued to touch. "I didn't have one of these as a bear. But they're fun, aren't they?"

Yosuke sucked in a breath through his teeth as Teddie touched the slit at the top of his cock and looked down at what was happening. Teddie was slightly smaller than Yosuke was both in length and girth, and his cock stuck up at an even greater angle than Yosuke's own. Licking his lips, Yosuke touched the drop of precome that had beaded at the top of Teddie's cock with his thumb and smeared it down his length. Teddie shivered and gave Yosuke a wide grin. "Is this what it feels like when I touch you?"

With a nod, Yosuke went back to touching Teddie. As much as he'd imagined touching Yu like this, he'd never actually touched anyone other than himself and it was kind of fascinating to him just how much heady pleasure there was in doing such a thing for someone else, even if it wasn't much, just to watch them enjoy it. 

"How is this different from scoring?" Teddie seemed to have grown tired of playing with the head of Yosuke's cock and had moved on to circling his fingers around the base and squeezing lightly while stroking upward.

Yosuke fought the urge to collapse as his knees seemed to weaken. "Scoring is when a girl does this with you and lets you go all the way."

"Like in the books."

Letting out a shaky breath, Yosuke nodded and felt his knees wobble. "Hey, uh, let's get back on the futon." As soon as Teddie's hand moved, Yosuke sank to his knees and grabbed Teddie's hips to pull him down in front of him. 

Teddie laughed. "Did you think you were going to fall? I wouldn't let that happen."

Yosuke met Teddie's eyes for a long moment. "You wouldn't, would you?"

"Nope!" Teddie licked his lips. "Hey, I read about something else. I'm going to try it!" He pushed Yosuke back so that he was seated on the futon with his legs spread and Teddie was quick to lean down and run his tongue along the tip of Yosuke's cock. "Hmm..."

Yosuke shook his head. "Teddie, you really shouldn't-"

"Shh. You said you'd help me," Teddie said and then licked his lips before lowering his mouth over the head of Yosuke's cock. Yosuke winced as Teddie's teeth grazed him, but he could no longer find words for his protest as the heat of Teddie's mouth seem to draw Yosuke's cock to an even fuller hardness. Teddie pulled off with a smacking noise and wrinkled his nose. "That doesn't taste very good."

Yosuke panted for a moment, then shook his head. "Look. You just lay back on the futon, okay?"

Teddie's eyebrows rose, but he did as Yosuke had asked. Yosuke got back on his knees and moved forward to straddle Teddie's waist and leaned forward so that his cock, still slightly damp with Teddie's saliva, was pressed firm against Teddie's own arousal. He brought his hand up to his mouth and licked his palm a few times until it was slick, then brought it down to stroke Teddie's cock and then his own. When his hand was once again supporting his weight, he moved his hips so that he slid against Teddie's length. They both moaned.

From there, everything bled together in Yosuke's mind. Teddie, the gravure model, Yu... His lust painted a heady picture in his mind as his precome mixed with Teddie's to ease the friction between their cocks. With Teddie writhing under him and gasping and clutching at him, Yosuke knew he wouldn't hold out long. Teddie stilled beneath him suddenly just as Yosuke's arms began to weaken and he leaned further onto Teddie. The hot come that touched his abdomen that wasn't his own was enough to send Yosuke over the edge; his own come came out in short spurts that pooled in Teddie's pale pubic hair. 

Yosuke gasped and rolled off of Teddie and tried to fathom what he'd just done. 

Teddie laughed as he sat up. "Yosuke! You got me all messy." He looked around. "Do you have a towel in here?"

His breath still shaky, Yosuke got up and pulled a dirty undershirt from his hamper and tossed it to Teddie. "Use that for now." He used a pair of underwear to clean himself off as best he could. Gazing into the hamper, Yosuke couldn't seem to get enough air in his lungs. "Say, Teddie," he said without turning around, "You know you can't tell anyone about this, right?"

Teddie walked up to join him and drop the now dirtier shirt in the hamper. "Huh? Why?"

"No one would believe you," Yosuke said with a hint of a grin. "And you don't want them thinking you're a liar, right?"

"No!" Teddie's face fell. "I wanted them to know that I almost scored and it was Teddie-rific!"

Yosuke moved to get pajamas for himself and Teddie. "Just keep trying and maybe you'll really score with someone. Hey, you'll at least score before Kanji does!"

Teddie nodded thoughtfully as he took a set of pajamas from Yosuke. "Yeah, I guess."

As they went through their bedtime routine, Yosuke kept sneaking glances at Teddie's face. He wondered if the smile there belied some deeper feeling that Yosuke had betrayed his trust. Yosuke also wondered if it were possible for a person to defeat their shadow and then have another one form because of some other feeling.

When they were snug in their futons that night, Yosuke tried to focus on Teddie's breathing. But where it had helped him drift off to sleep on previous nights, now the soft sound seemed to hammer painful feelings into Yosuke's heart. Feelings like he'd taken advantage of Teddie and abused him and... molested him... What kind of a person was he?

Yosuke didn't remember falling asleep that night. All he remembered the next morning was laying there for hours, bolstering his determination to never let Yu know how he really felt about him. If he'd do something like that to sweet, innocent Teddie, what would he do to Yu?

As Yosuke got ready for school, his feet heavy and his movements even more clumsy than usual, he glanced at his mom's shelf of romance novels and clenched his jaw. "Hey, Ted, why don't we see about getting you a job at Junes? Then you can do something during the day and earn some pocket money so that if you want any more clothes, then they don't have to be charged to me."

Teddie nodded happily. "Yeah! Do you guys need a mascot? I still have my bear suit!"

"I'll ask my dad," Yosuke said as he stole a strawberry off of the remains of Teddie's cake in the fridge. "Um, I'll be heading off now, I guess."

"Okay. Bye!" Teddie waved and Yosuke turned quickly toward the entryway.

Yosuke saw Yu walking ahead of him near the entrance of the school that day, but he hung back. Chie was with him and they were talking and Yosuke wondered if he was only imagining the way Chie nudged Yu's arm and laughed a little longer at a joke than it seemed she should. Yosuke knew that _their_ relationship was the kind that the world recognized. He wanted to want that. He wanted to be normal and for people to like him. But what he wanted and what actually happened never seemed to coincide. 

Turning on his music, Yosuke slid his headphones over his ears and focused on the melody and the beat instead of the world.


End file.
